On the wrong track: a stadium proposal that went nowhere

The roster of the last team to play in Comiskey Park might have included Bill Melton and Wilbur Wood rather than Ozzie Guillen and Carlton Fisk, if Sox owner Arthur Allyn Jr. had his way.

Allyn unveiled a plan for a new stadium in June 1967 that would have had all of Chicago's sports teams playing on one campus in the South Loop.

It would have meant not only the Sox abandoning Comiskey Park, but the Cubs and Bears also leaving Wrigley Field.

The $50 million sports complex would offer a 46,000-seat outdoor baseball stadium, a 60,000-seat outdoor stadium for football and soccer, and a 15,000-seat indoor stadium for basketball and hockey.

It would have been the first new stadium in Chicago since the Chicago Stadium in 1929.

What is remarkable is that Allyn planned to use private funds for the project, with the Comiskey Park Corp., a subsidiary of Allyn's Artnell company, as the parent organization.

Reports said Artnell agreed with the Chicago and Western Indiana Railroad, owner of most of the land, to seek to develop a lease on a 50-acre property bounded by State, Polk, Clark and 15th streets. If that sounds familiar, you might recognize it as Dearborn Station.

“The gigantic new sports complex, said Allyn, will be hiked up on stilts” and stretch over the land “now occupied by the Dearborn Station and its trackage area,” wrote Jack Griffin in the Sun-Times.

One potential hitch would be the air rights, but Allyn said he and the railroad's president were on the right track toward a lease.

And what of Comiskey? Allyn said he planned to sell it for industrial research, perhaps to the Illinois Institute of Technology.

The project, he said, could be completed by 1971, although 1972 was more likely.

Even though it is hard to imagine the Cubs away from Wrigley or the Sox playing in another location beside 35th and Shields, consider that both parks had been around for more than a half a century.

Allyn might well have been eager for a new location. When he made the announcement in a press conference, the Sox were in first place, but attendance at Comiskey was declining.

Indeed, Allyn would spend the remaining two years of his ownership tinkering with the club, renaming Comiskey White Sox Park, installing artificial turf known as Sox Sod in the infield, switching the team's television outlet from WGN to WFLD, and even playing several home games in Milwaukee.

Present at the press conference to hear Allyn out were Bears President George (Mugs) Halas Jr. and Cubs Secretary-Treasurer Bill Heymans.

“If practical, it's got to be interesting,” the younger Papa Bear said, adding that Allyn had called his father the night before.

“Papa Bear agrees that Chicago needs an all-sports stadium and arena complex, but he is dubious that two major league baseball teams can thrive while housed in a common stadium,” Griffin wrote.

Allyn said the solution was simple — when the Sox were there, the stadium would be White Sox Park, while it would be Cubs Park when the Cubs occupied it. It would be Halas Stadium for the Bears.

Meanwhile, Heymans was similarly noncommital, saying, “We're here to hear the details from Mr. Allyn as he now has them.”

Allyn said the two teams he owned, the Sox and the Mustangs soccer team, intended to move in.

One of the questions sportswriters raised was why Allyn wouldn't consider a dome. He said that due to the heavy expense, a dome would be impractical because there were only three or four bad weather days during the Chicago sports season.

In the fall of '67, Allyn said he anticipated the engineering and architectural work would be complete by 1968, although he admitted the football stadium might not fit into the plans.

By May 1968, Allyn remained optimistic, saying he had reached an informal agreement with Del Webb to build the project for $49 million. He said he hoped to be meeting with Halas Sr. and Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley.

However, Allyn, after his wife suffered a stroke, sold out to his brother John in 1969.

In April 1969, Daley announced plans to abandon three railway stations for redevelopment, including Dearborn Station.

As for its use for a park for the Sox, Daley said, “They don't need a new park.”

John Allyn told reporters in September: “The agreement on the air rights was all set to sign. Then the city asked us to hold off until the rail tracks would be relocated, making it possible to put the stadium on the ground level.”

Ironically, Griffin would write, “Chicago's giant 'white elephant,' Soldier Field, went up in 1920, but it has never been a successful operation and is seldom used except for special events.

And yet, this would turn out to be the only “new” stadium for Chicago when the Bears moved there just a few years later.

Outside of the sentimental value of remaining in two grand old ballparks, the idea of a privately funded South Loop sports complex was a visionary long-term solution to upcoming needs for new facilities.

Now that the possibility of the Chicago Bears of Arlington Heights inches closer to reality, perhaps Art Allyn's idea of a multi-sport complex might merit a second look right here in the Northwest suburbs.